Homily for Confirmation 2009

Welcome! Let us tonight reverence the children we love as we Confirm them in faith. Let us sing them into the Church as we pray together.

We spend a lot of time reassuring children at school that they are unique and special and that each has his or her gifts and talents. It is important for their maturity that they are confident in themselves as worthwhile people. But, we know from experience, that the world can treat us much less than special or important. The world can put us down and regard us as dispensable. Even more, we human beings are seen as alone in an immense universe which cares little for us.

The Church, too, tells us through the scriptures that we are special. We are the apple of God's eye, the psalmist (Psalm 17:8) tells us. Each of us is uniquely loved by God. Our Baptism tells us as much. We are spoken of by St Paul as God's adopted children. It is as though we had no family at all and God sees our plight and gathers us in and makes of us a family.

We celebrate that family here tonight. We will celebrate the completion of these young people's initiation into that family when they join us for First Communion this weekend. But it is only the completion of the beginning of a life of faith. From here on they join us on a journey of faith which will involve much struggle. It is a struggle because to keep firmly before us that God's love never fails can be difficult.

People who have faith and who attend Church can often be ridiculed or put down. The very idea that life has a high purpose and destiny is foreign to many. How these young people respond to such challenges depends very much on how seriously we take our own faith and witness it to them. Some as we know respond in a violent way to the injustices of the modern world. Others try to retreat from the world and all its troubles. That is certainly not our path. Our path is always the path of Jesus who called us to turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile, give your cloak to the person who has none. Love your neighbour. Love even your enemies. None of which is too popular.

The sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit; the uncountable gifts of the Holy Spirit, are given to us to in abundance. Abundantly because those gifts are the very life of the Triune God. That is the promise of Pentecost and so of Confirmation. Those gifts are realised in the Church not simply in us as individuals. Because the gifts are for the building up of the Body of Christ so that the Good News might be lived and proclaimed.

So to begin a faith journey in the Church is to be called to be missionary. Every word we utter. Every thing we do either speaks of God's love or it obscures it. We don't always appreciate that who we are even more than what we do has an enormous impact on others.

Do you love me? Jesus asks Peter. He asks that of us as well. What will be our reply?

Tonight then we Confirm these young people in the faith of the Church praying that they may be faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus.

Fr Graham